LONG BRANCH – As the sun peaked out over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday morning, more than 100 competitors hit the sand of the beach near Pier Village for the inaugural Tough Sander competition.

The competitors, most of whom competed as teams, had to scale a half dozen piles of sand, traverse through a field of tires, lug heavy bags of sand to and fro, tunnel through a pair of plastic tubes, flip heavy tires across the beach, go for a swim in the ocean and then sprint across the beach.

The Tough Sander competition hit the beach and surf near Pier Village in Long Branch on Saturday morning.Rob Spahr / NJ.com

And when they completed the course, they did it all over again – two more times.

“I think people were worried that the course would be a little easy, because it was our first try,” event director John D’Esposito said. “But if you look out there, it’s killing them. People who I work out with all the time are dying… it’s great.”

D’Esposito said the idea for The Tough Sander was to give people a different kind of event to take part in and to incorporate the beach into it somehow.

“The city was absolutely fantastic in working with us,” he said. “They really went out of their way to help us make this happen.”

Every dollar raised from the fundraising event will go to benefit The-15-40 Connection, a 501 (c) (3) organization that works to raise awareness about the benefits of early cancer detection.

While the event took eight months to plan, it was only promoted to the public for about two months.